It was a very cold Saturday and a good time for a committee meeting, chai tea and red velvet cake.

It was also a good time to bring my Yashica A, loaded with T-Max 100 lying around somewhere. Now that my stock of black and white film is slowly dwindling down because of my project I realized I should have kept track how many I have.

Had a bit of a trouble with the exposure there. Better luck next time.

Also a good time to take photographs because the TLR is quiet and non-assuming. I love it.

New Years Eve 2011 at downtown (this is not a continuation of this entry) but was there to meet up with L after her co-op program at Saskatchewan.

Interestingly I also brought a rangefinder; my Olympus 35 SP to test it out. This is a late entry as you can see, since I’ve already posted multiple photographs taken by that camera. This is the first roll though, which I also got over the holidays.

What a good way to catch up with coffee.

We decided to go to Parlour Cafe at Main St. Lovely place.

I had an accident last Sunday. The photos on this entry were taken using a bulk Ilford FP4 Plus 125 ISO. But the canister that it was in is the same as the other bulk roll that I have in 400 ISO. So I ended up shooting it as a 400 ISO (camera also set to 400).

I never pushed film before so this is brand new to me.

As you may know I am a big fan of high contrast black and white so this one totally rocked. So glad it turned out really well.

The rest of the photos (below) were taken using an actual 400 ISO film.

Taking advantage of the relatively warm weather last Sunday, I went out to Downtown to run some errands (meet friends: never happened, delivered my C-41s, etc.). Sunday in Winnipeg tends to be fairly quiet. Edmonton is quiet too (I guess, I always worked on Sundays when I lived there) and Toronto is no way near the word “quiet” even on a weekend. Interestingly I find my quiet Sundays to be enjoyable (as opposed to when I was younger–was used to the malls open longer regardless of which day of the week it is).

I suppose I am getting old and getting tired of the noise in the environment.

Downtown Winnipeg is the hub of hockey, in my opinion as a non-hockey/non-sports fan. And I think it’s good for the city. I like the idea that it brings people together in a central place.

On a Sunday however, it is still quiet. It was chilly last Sunday though but relatively warm nonetheless. Except for this week (at the time of this post), we’ve been getting higher temperatures and hit positive temperature on some days. It’s insane, but I like it.

I stayed at Tims because I was supposed to meet up with Pat (who arrived back from Taiwan) but he did not show up (jet-lagged). I ended up staying there, studying. Good thing I brought my notes.

This stranger approached me and asked if I have a camera with me (my SP was beside me) and asked if I could take his photo. I did. He then asked if I was married, to which I replied no. He (jokingly) said that he’ll marry me instead, to which I responded that my boyfriend will be mad.

He said that I should get married and have kids, and if that happens, he would like to have a copy of this photo.

Ah downtown. The things I see and the strange (yet interesting) people I meet.

2012. Midnight was spent with family, the late afternoon was spent at my friend’s house for my goddaughter’s birthday party.

Before I move on, I just started developing my own films again. This time I ignored my dislike for math (ratios in this instance) and learned how to measure the ratio between the chemicals and the water. Kids, when your teachers say you need math in everyday life, they’re not shitting you. It’s true.

I did realize however that I need to get a decent set of hanging clothespin (if you’re Filipino you know what I mean) and a bottle of Photoflo. And a squeegee. I got some ugly dry water stains and scratches because of the lack of space to hang my negatives. Oh well.

If you’re a risk-taker (in this case, this is just a euphemism for stoops) like me, it is probably not a good idea to jump in to this year-long project without testing the camera. I did pop in a roll of Superia 400 the day before but I haven’t even brought it to the photolab so I wasn’t even sure if the exposure was spot-on. (It was recently serviced before I received it)

Oh well. I guess it worked.

Still having a bit of a hard time with the camera’s ergonomics and rather sticky shutter button (like the Trip 35′s) but I love the lens. Definitely loving it. I discovered that on full-auto mode the camera does not take a picture if it thinks there’s not enough light. This manifested when I used it because it was loaded with 100 ISO. Really similar to the Trip 35 except for the red flag. I by-passed it by going manual (f/2.8; 1/30). It worked! And the tone was the one that I was looking for (as opposed to the rather bland and flat auto exposure of the previous photographs).

On an unrelated note, I need a longer camera strap.

Here’s to more Fuji X10 shots taken at night. Still using the B&W + Red Filter film simulation and at 800 ISO. This time I did some post-processing mostly by sharpening the photos once and playing around with the curves. I am really hoping that I could get this result in-camera (or something close to this) but for now I have to resolve with the idea of post-processing photos.

In general I like the X10′s low-light performance. Shooting at 800 ISO was such a pleasure especially when capturing the streets at night (I rarely do this even with my other digital cameras).

I haven’t experienced my battery dying due to the cold, but maybe that’s because we’ve been experiencing a fairly warm weather for the past few days. That’s relatively warm compared to the temperature we had for the past couple of weeks.

So far I like the monochrome filters. I haven’t tested the Orange and Yellow ones yet but the Red performed decently. Anyway, this is a type of shots I usually do when I go out with friends. As for the colored film simulations I have yet to fully explore it but so far I like it (but not loving it).